Reading Notes: Sita Sings the Blues Part A

This week, I'm watching Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Paley. I was excited to jump into this film this week since I am focusing on Sita for my Storybook project, so it should be interesting to hear some of the tales I've read the past two weeks from her perspective.

0:11-0:14 - Sita sings the blues, describing her and Rama's love together in the forest and Rama kills rakshasas by the thousands. Lakshmana is nowhere to be seen, so Rama and Sita are happily enjoying their days together.

0:15 - The narrators discuss that Ravana isn't necessarily bad other than taking Sita. However, I don't really understand this because in the readings, Rama and his brothers were literally born as Vishnu's avatars because Ravana was enslaving and oppressing other gods since he can't be hurt by gods or demons, and Vishnu split himself in order to defeat Ravana as a mortal. It was interesting to hear that Ravana was so devoted to Shiva that he plays instruments for him with his intestines, we definitely didn't see anything about that in the Ramayana. 

0:17 - When Ravana isn't listening to Surphanakha about Rama, she decides to describe Sita as being the most beautiful woman around in an attempt to get Ravana to go after her. This is all quite manipulative, with Surphanakha knowing that Ravana will be unable to resist going after Sita, even though Surphanakha just cares about hurting Rama.

0:19 - Sita loves Rama so much, she's just standing around singing about her love for him. She's like a Disney princess enamored by the prince, she's even got butterflies following her around and dancing to the beat.

0:23 - I didn't realize that Hanuman is an incarnation of Shiva! It makes sense that one of the other gods came to earth as a "mortal" to help Vishnu with Ravana, but I hadn't realized this! Hanuman's sole purpose is to help Rama on his quest to find Sita and defeat Ravana.

0:27 - Okay Sita is freaking awesome. She tells Ravana off, explaining how Rama is going to wreck him as soon as he gets to Lanka, then proceeds to let Ravana know that she could kill him at any time she wanted, but she's holding back because Rama hadn't ordered her to. Ravana had no idea what he was getting himself into.

(Sita telling Ravana of his soon to be death by Rama; Image Source)

0:40 - Sita's singing the blues about how Rama's being so mean to her. She's confused about why Rama is so cold when she waited for him and honored him.

0:43 - Sita forgives Rama so easily, saying "I live only for you."